SHILLONG: Northeastern region’s premier health care centre, NEIGRIHMS has been hamstrung by the shortage of skilled labourers for timely completion of its on-going construction works. Thanks to the COVID pandemic and the resultant imposition of official restrictions on entry of labourers from outside.
At a time when the state government is focusing on developing health infrastructure, the absence of skilled working hands has stymied the construction work of three major health infrastructure projects like setting up of Regional Cancer Centre, buildings for Medical College and Nursing College.
NEIGRIHMS officiating Director Dr P Bhattacharya, while giving an account of the projects to The Shillong Times on Monday, said that these projects require more than 300 highly skilled labourers, while there were only 40 labourers at the site.
He said that the progress of these projects was stalled for a considerable period of time because of the pandemic. However, with a lot of persuasion, the implementing agency has resumed work. But owing non-availability labour locally, the progress has been sluggish.
The situation has not been helped by the state government’s stringent restrictions on entry of “outsiders”. “These are essential jobs and we have got permission for only 52 labourers and the government thereafter put a complete halt to issuing permission, despite the implementing agency having all their required licenses and necessary certificates,” Dr Bhattacharya said.
However, the three massive projects are making some headway as the MBBS boys’ and interns’ hostels are scheduled to be handed over to the institute in September. A target has been set to the agency to hand over each floor of the projects to the institute every 20 days.
It may be mentioned that the institute is planning to expand its MBBS enrolment capacity to 600 and that of Nursing seats to 400 by next year and hence they want the projects to be completed at the earliest.
The institute is also hoping to complete the Regional Cancer Centre by early part of 2022. The cancer centre would be a boon for Meghalaya and the region in view of the high occurrence of cancer in the North East.
